Nanostructured fullerene-like carbon nitride (FL CN,) is commonly grown by reactive magnetron sputtering of carbon in a nitrogencontaining atmosphere. The film structure formation for this technique is presumably due to the existence of preformed molecular CxNy (x,y <= 2) species in the deposition flux, which act as growth templates and enhance the selectivity of chemical desorption processes. In the present study, the extent of the desorption processes and the implications on the resulting film have been investigated in detail, addressing in particular the structure evolution and the origin of the incorporated nitrogen. This was studied by varying the N-2-fraction in the discharge from 0 to 1 and the substrate temperature from 600 degrees C (873 K) down to minus 130 degrees C (143 K). The results show that the incorporation rate of carbon and nitrogen into the film increases substantially with an increased N-2-content in the plasma and decreasing substrate temperature, thus indicating that the chemistry and magnitude of the arriving flux is substantially altered with the N-2-fraction in the discharge. It is concluded that the chemically activated desorption in conjunction with the varying chemistry of the film-forming flux affects the sensitive structural balance, determined by incorporation and desorption of film forming CxNy (x,y <= 2) species. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.